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WHITE PAPER Fiberstore (FS.COM) | Clean the Dirt and Dust In Data Center Page 1 Wipe your finger on a distribution cabinet or a patch panel in a data center. Then watch your finger, can you see the scene shown in the picture on the right side? Your finger is attached with dust or dirt. This situation is so familiar to most telecom engineers working in data centers. However, how many people really care about it? You might recognize that the data center needs cleaning, but you might just think about it. This is the contaminant that can be seen and checked directly by eyes or touching. How about those dust or dirt inside the equipment? Over time, without timely cleaning, the accumulation of dirt and dust will lead to problems like overheating and various network failures. This is just the start of troubles, more are there to be deal with, if no proper action was taken. Why Clean the Data Center? What would happen, if there is no regular cleaning in data center? As mentioned, the most direct result of contaminant is overheating. Why? Dust and pollutants in the data center are usually light-weight. If there is air flow, dust or dirt will move with it. The cooling system of the data center is largely depending on server fan which can bring the dust and dirt into the cooling system. The accumulation of these contaminant can cause fan failure or static discharge inside equipment. The heat dissipation will need more time and heat emission efficiency is limited. The following picture which shows the contaminant at a server fan air intake, answers this question intuitively. Clean the Dirt and Dust In Data Center

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Fiberstore (FS.COM) | Clean the Dirt and Dust In Data Center Page 1

Wipe your finger on a distribution cabinet or a patch panel in a data center. Then watch your finger,can you see the scene shown in the picture on the right side? Your finger is attached with dust ordirt. This situation is so familiar to most telecom engineers working in data centers. However, howmany people really care about it? You might recognize that the data center needs cleaning, but youmight just think about it. This is the contaminant that can be seen and checked directly by eyes ortouching. How about those dust or dirt inside the equipment? Over time, without timely cleaning,the accumulation of dirt and dust will lead to problems like overheating and various networkfailures. This is just the start of troubles, more are there to be deal with, if no proper action wastaken.

Why Clean the Data Center?

What would happen, if there is no regular cleaning in data center? As mentioned, the most directresult of contaminant is overheating. Why? Dust and pollutants in the data center are usuallylight-weight. If there is air flow, dust or dirt will move with it. The cooling system of the data centeris largely depending on server fan which can bring the dust and dirt into the cooling system. Theaccumulation of these contaminant can cause fan failure or static discharge inside equipment. Theheat dissipation will need more time and heat emission efficiency is limited. The following picturewhich shows the contaminant at a server fan air intake, answers this question intuitively.

Clean the Dirt and DustIn Data Center

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With the cooling system being affected by the dust and dirt, the risk of the data center will beincreased largely. Contaminants won’t stop at cooling system, they will capture every possible placewhere they can get to. In addition, today’s data center is largely depend on electronic equipmentand fiber optic components like fiber optic connectors, which are very sensitive to contaminants.Problems like power failures, loss of data and short circuit might be happened if the contaminantswere not cleaned. What’s worse, short circuit might cause fire in data center, which could lead toirreparable damage (shown in the following picture).

Dust and dirt can also largely affect the life span of data center equipment as well as their operation.Cleaning and uptime usually run hand-in-hand. The uptime of a data center will be reduced if thereare too many contaminants. Cleaning the data center regularly would be a good deal to reduce datacenter downtime and extend the life span of data center infrastructure equipment, comparing thecost of restarting the data center and repairing or replacement of the equipment.

Last but not least, Data center cleaning can offer an aesthetic appeal of a clean and dust-freeenvironment. Although it is not the main purpose, but a clean data center can present a moredesirable working environment for telecom engineers, especially for those who need to install cableunder a raised floor or working overhead racks and cabinet. No one would reject the cleaning datacenter.

Contaminants Sources of Data Center

It is clear that data center cleaning is necessary. But how to keep the data center clean? Before takeaction, source of contaminants of data center should be considered. Generally, there are two mainsources, one is inside the data center, and the other is from outside of the data center. The internalcontaminants are usually particles from air conditioning unit fan belt wear, toner dust, packagingand construction materials, human hair and clothing, and zinc whiskers from electroplated steel

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floor plates. The external sources of contamination include cars, electricity generation, sea salt,natural and artificial fibers, plant pollen and wind-blown dust.

Data Center Cleaning and Contaminants Prevention

Knowing where the dust and dirt come from, here offers some suggestions and Tip to reduce thecontaminants.

Reduce the data center access. It is recommended that limit access to only necessarypersonnel can reduce the external contaminants.

Sticky mats should be used at the entrances to the raised floor, which can eliminate thecontaminants from shoes largely.

Never unpack new equipment inside the data center, establish a staging area outside thedata center for unpacking and assembling equipment.

No food, drink or smoking in the data center. Typically all sites are required to have fresh air make-up to the data center, remember to

replace on a regular basis. Cleaning frequency depends on activity in the data center. Floor vacuuming should be more

often is the traffic in the data center increased. Inspect and clean the fiber optic components regularly, especially, fiber optic connector and

interface of switched and transceivers. The inside and outside of racks and cabinets should be cleaning.

Conclusion

Data center is the information factory today. It deals with numerous information and data. Datacenter cleaning is necessary. On one hand, If the “factory” is polluted by dust and dirt, how could itprovide reliable and high quality services. On the other hand, data center cleaning can extend thelife span of equipment and saving cost for both cooling and maintenance.

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Contact UsManufacturing R & D (China)

Eastern Side, Second Floor, Science &Technology Park, No.6, Keyuan Road,Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518057,ChinaTel: +86 (755) 8300 3611Fax: +86 (755) 8326 9395Email: [email protected]

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London Office (United Kingdom)

Third Floor 207 Regent Street, London,W1B 3HH, United KingdomTel: +44 2081441980

Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed orimplied, concerning any equipment, equipment features, or service offered or to be offered by Fiberstore.Fiberstore reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time, without notice, and assumes noresponsibility for its use. This information document describes features that may not be currently available.Contact a Fiberstore sales team for information on feature and product availability.

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